The most striking aspects of the new head-trauma study of former NFL players published in JAMA Neurology are not the formal findings per se. In many ways, those merely quantify and validate suspicions that even casual fans likely hold. The rub is that 40 percent of the retired players that researchers in Texas…

Dave Duerson was a millionaire and a successful CEO after the conclusion of his 11-year NFL career. But when he shot himself in the heart last year, leaving behind a note that asked his family to donate his brain for dementia testing, Duerson was going through bankruptcy proceedings. He owed hundreds of thousands of…

The '85 Chicago Bears are one of the most iconic championship teams in NFL history. Payton. The Fridge. Ditka. McMahon. Buddy Ryan and his 46 defense. That rap song. A 15-1 record in a season that ended with playoff shutouts of the Giants and Rams followed by a 46-10 drubbing of the Patriots in Super Bowl XX.

Eight days after his teammate committed suicide, former Chicago Bear Richard Dent was among those who carried Dave Duerson's casket into a South Side Baptist church for a memorial service and funeral today. Hundreds of mourners attended. Duerson's youngest son Brock offered one of several eulogies.

On Nov. 27, I spent an hour on the phone with former Pro Bowl defensive back Dave Duerson. It had been seven years since his mother's death and 364 days since his father's burial, and the following day he would celebrate his 50th birthday. Less than three months later, he sent some text messages to his family and shot…

It's hard to imagine a more horrifying thought than one of the last ones Dave Duerson ever had: knowing you've got to shoot yourself through the heart to make sure scientists can find the brain damage that led you to suicide in the first place.